When you start out in business, you perform hundreds of tasks yourself. You’ve done them a million times, so you just do them and don’t think about them. However, if you want to grow your business, you must develop procedures for everything.
As you grow, you’ll need to (and want to) delegate certain tasks to someone else. But your newly hired assistant will not understand your business as well as you do. She’ll need guidance and training on how to perform certain tasks in your business.
If you have written procedures for handling tasks, you’ll be setting yourself and your assistant up for success. She won’t spend time wondering what to do next or stumbling through a process; with written procedures, it’s all laid out, step by step.
Or, there may be tasks that you don’t do very often and you’ve forgotten how. A documented procedure will allow you to quickly access that information without wasting time figuring it out again.
Benefits of Having Documented Processes
I’ve been documenting processes in my business for 12 years now, and I’ve seen some great benefits:
- If I forget how to do something, I’m not having to waste time figuring it out again.
- It helps team members learn the process faster
- Reduces the number of mistakes made
- It’s easier to transfer tasks to an assistant quickly if needed
- Important information isn’t just “in someone’s head”
- Team members take ownership in improving and updating the process as needed
Overall, it saves you time, money, and headaches!
Why Document Your Processes?
A few years ago, I was talking with my husband about how my assistant was stumbling through a task. I felt so bad for her because I had developed a procedure for the task but had failed to give it to her.
So she was having to reinvent the wheel, as I did the first time around. My failure to give her the procedure cost me time and money. I won’t do that again!
Don’t have an assistant yet? I’ve written articles about hiring a virtual assistant and six strategies for getting started on outsourcing. You may not be ready to hire help for your business yet, and that’s okay.
Just keep reading because there are things you can do now to prepare when it’s time to outsource. Start developing documented procedures for everything you do now. It’s an important step to growing your business!
How To Get Started
As you go through your daily routine, ask yourself, “Have I done this before? Is it taking longer because I don’t have a written process in place?”
If you find yourself wasting time trying to figure out something you’ve done before, I’ve been there! So just write it down now, and next time, it won’t take you as long.
Or, ask yourself, “Do I need to be doing this?” If the answer is no, start documenting the task so that you can outsource it and pass it off to someone else.
Keep in mind that it’s important for you to know how to do the task FIRST. Write down exactly how you want the task performed. And, importantly, write down WHY you do that task. That way, when you outsource it, you can be certain it’s completed in a way that matches your business goals.
The Free Tool We Use for Our Procedures:
You can purchase fancy and expensive software to develop and track procedures.
I prefer to keep it simple and use Google Docs for most of my procedures. This allows my team members to make edits and updates to the procedures if needed. We can collaborate, ask questions, and make comments to each other in the procedure.
What if you haven’t had a chance to document procedures but need to hire help now? Here’s an idea: Have the new team member document the steps as you teach him/her. This is a great way to give the team members more ownership of the process!
Planning Now = Less Pain Later
I learned a valuable lesson that day with my new assistant. Since then, procedures (and making sure my team members have access to them!) have been a critical aspect of my business.
If you’re hoping to grow your online business, plan now for that growth! Open a word document or Google Doc and start writing down how to handle parts of your business. Especially those that you think you’ll want to outsource soon.
Don’t worry if your business is not ready to take on help! Start documenting your process now so that when you are ready to pass something off, it’s a smoother transition. Taking the time to do that today will save you time later down the road.
This article was originally published in June 2013
Great article Christina. It’s so true, systems, while not considered very “sexy” do liberate you! Another tip that I give my coaching & consulting clients is that if they don’t have a process/system documented and they are ready to delegate it to a virtual assistant or other member of their team, simply have them document it as you are teaching them the task. Then have them test it, update it and provide you a copy that you can valide and add to your training or operations manual. It takes the work off your to do list, frees yoru time and encourages your team member to take ownership!
Sherley Grace,
That is a great tip, and one that I do. As I teach my process I have my team document what they are doing as well as work from my docs. Part of why I like Google Docs so much 🙂
So on target Christina..as someone who has spent years strategizing the backend of businesses, large and small, the The fastest way to streamline is to write it down…whether it is on a piece of paper, in a document file or (my favorite) ScreenSteps for making sure there are both pictures and words, it’s an essential step in growing a business.
Although I used to do huge products, sometimes numbering the thousands of pages, it is ever so much easy to write something down as you do it…one procedure at a time. Then we small business owners don’t spend years documenting stuff, only to find we now longer do “that” and our business has dried home!
And that’s how I came to have “The Sexy Backend for Your Business™”!
Or even for tricky jobs you don’t do regularly. That saves time, too. You don’t have to get back into the original thought pattern. You just get on with it.
As one who writes procedure manuals, let me add an Amen! They are the breadcrumbs that never dry up and blow away!
I have to say I relate to this article on every level. We recently had a new hire in which I had to teach him how to do all the tasks that I used to do. I wish I could go back and create a basic template of all the tasks involved for my job so that he could follow step by step instructions. I actually found myself doing this several days after the hire in order to help him out. I am not good at teaching, so this tool is so beneficial and I will definitely implement it from now on.